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Mint
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- Mint
‘Hacks' review: One of the best comedies about comedy
An immaculate first episode is a thing of rare beauty. It's uncommon to see a series emerge fully formed, with a voice, a vibe, originality and self-awareness. Even the most loved shows usually can only establish an original premise or protagonists in the first episode, growing into a world over time and seasons. Therefore I remember how delighted I was with the first episode of Hacks back in 2021, compelled to write about the show in this column even when it wasn't then streaming in India (all four seasons can now be found on JioHotstar, mercifully). Created by Lucia Aniello, Paul W. Downs and Jen Statsky, the Hacks opener is a marvel. Up and coming comedy writer Ava has been cancelled for making a problematic political joke on Twitter, and the only gig on her immediate horizon is to work with old-school standup comedian Deborah Vance who performs so regularly in Las Vegas that she doesn't bother changing her rusty, sexist material. The episode immediately sets up the different lenses through which to look at comedy, positions the progressives and the regressives across a generational gap, and then… a knockout punch: Deborah demands to know the joke Ava posted, and dismisses it—not for being political or provocative, but for not being funny enough. She fixes it on the spot, and Ava (along with all of us) is awestruck. This is a superlative coup de grace, showing how the art of the joke takes us to the heart of the joke. It's a Sorkinesque flourish—and given how much I revere the glorious first episode of Aaron Sorkin's The West Wing, there really is no higher praise. The first season builds on this crackling start, with unique and compelling characters and a screwball energy built on comedic contrasts, with leads Hannah Einbinder (who plays Ava) and the majestic Jean Smart (as Deborah Vance) forever talking over each other. Yet… with great starts come great opportunities to stumble. The second season, where the two leads go on a nationwide comedy tour, is fun but feels stretched out, and decidedly less essential. By the time the third season rolled around—with Ava and Deborah pitted against each other and back together again and again, through easily avoided misunderstandings—the show became too repetitive, and less than worthy of Jean Smart's bravura performance. Here we go again, I sighed, here's another The Marvelous Mrs Maisel (Amazon Prime), a show about a comedian where everyone loved the pilot but few could make it to the belaboured series finale. I am therefore thrilled to report that the fourth season—which wrapped up last week—is a rousing return to form. By crowning Deborah the first female late-night talk show host in America, Hacks found new urgency, not to mention clever cameos from other hosts and comedians. Since no woman has ever been allowed into the US late-night scene, these fictional protagonists break new ground—and the Deborah/Ava contrasts feel exciting all over again because the stakes are real and fresh. Deborah wants to make the most popular show that pleases every demographic, while Ava (who keeps googling the Peabody Awards submission deadlines) wants to push the envelope. The show has always had smashing characters. Co-creator Paul W. Downs, who plays Jimmy, the harangued manager to these two flawed and fantastic women, is superb this season. Helen Hunt is brutal as a no-nonsense network executive, Kaitlin Olson has a few great bits as Deborah's long-suffering (and insufferable) daughter, and Poppy Liu sparkles briefly as Deborah's personal blackjack dealer Kiki. Michaela Watkins, however, delivers too broad a performance as an oblivious HR person, and I do miss seeing more of Carl Clemons-Hopkins as Marcus the adviser, forever shaking his head at Deborah and Ava. The show really sings whenever the two women are riffing about comedy. Deborah pitches a politically incorrect joke, that Ava—all too quickly—calls out: 'I just think it's fat-shaming." 'And I think that's fat-joke-shaming," retorts Deborah. And then these two women, the first woman to host a late night show and her head writer, giggle awhile. It's not all camaraderie, of course. Deborah is written as one of the great roasters in television history—with a Maggie Smith level of disdain—and Smart deploys this snark constantly and cuttingly. Seeing Ava in casuals, for instance, Deborah matter-of-factly points out, 'You know, you're not funny enough to dress like Adam Sandler." There is one episode where it feels telegraphed that Deborah will perform something for Ava, so to speak, yet even this predictability feels appropriate. The biggest fan is the biggest critic is the biggest challenge. No challenge seems too mighty for Deborah. Smart plays her exceptionally well, creating an immediately iconic character who—miraculously—feels as believable as she is incredible. There's a lot she's grappling with, but when the lights come on, we see Deborah—sad and troubled Deborah—hit her teeth with her tongue, put on her brightest smile, and step out, with practiced and photogenic grace. 'You need to make the laughs yours," Deborah says. 'If you slip on a banana peel, people will laugh at you. If you tell people you slipped on a banana peel, that laugh's yours." 'That's beautiful," she's told. 'That's Nora Ephron," Deborah reveals. This comedic self-awareness gives Hacks its purpose, with Deborah revering the women who came before her—and Ava going a step further by putting Deborah on a pedestal. Hacks shows how funny women have built on funny women who came before them, namedropping Joan Didion and Eve Babitz, with a cameo featuring the great Carol Burnett. Deborah is certainly an icon, but she's standing on the shoulderpads of giants. Raja Sen is a screenwriter and critic. He has co-written Chup, a film about killing critics, and is now creating an absurd comedy series. He posts @rajasen. Also read: 'Jungle Nama': A thrilling play for children reimagines the myth of Bonbibi
The Guardian
27-02-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Running Point review – you'll be desperate for Kate Hudson's basketball comedy to end
Are you in the mood for a basketball comedy that has some leaden jokes and some even more leaden things to say about sexism and prejudice in the US industrial sports complex? Of course you're not. Nobody is. But it's here, it stars Kate Hudson and it's called Running Point so let's deal with it. Hudson plays Isla Gordon, one of four siblings whose father owned the Los Angeles Waves basketball team. Despite being the only one of Daddy Gordon's children who is knowledgable about the game, she has been overlooked all her life. Why? Because she is a girl and the rest of them are boys! Cue a cutesy flashback in which a child actor delivers a Sorkinesque monologue about the team's chances and her recommended player trades while trotting beside her father down a corridor of power, before having the door shut in her face as he enters another meeting room full of men in suits. She describes him, in what passes for a zinger in this sitcom, as an old-school 'sexist asshole'. So she rebels in her teens and 20s, with a 20-day marriage and a photoshoot for Playboy. Now she and the scions are all grown up, Daddy's dead and the boys have all the top jobs at the family firm. Cam (Justin Theroux) is a competent president and a handsome figurehead for the brand, Ness (Scott MacArthur) is general manager (after Daddy got Donald Rumsfeld to help him flee Manila after drug charges) and half-brother Sandy (Drew Tarver) is chief financial officer – smart, unathletic and, thanks to Daddy's thoughts on the matter, still not fully comfortable with being gay. Isla is coordinator of the Waves' charitable endeavours – a nice little job for a woman. Then, president Cam ploughs into a roadside cafe, narrowly missing a family of tourists while under the influence of the crack to which he is, among other things, addicted. 'Yes, I love it, OK?' He steps down on medical grounds. 'I need to fix this. Or at least learn how to hide it better.' Theroux is the best performer and this is the best line in the opening episode. I can't do sporting metaphors but I think I can safely say that if it were any kind of ballgame, most spectators would be slumped on the bleachers longing for half-time by now. Anyway. Guess who big brother appoints to run the franchise in his absence? Yes, his baby sister. Because Sandy only knows numbers, Ness is too friendly with the players and Cam knows that she was unfairly overlooked by the patriarch. And the patriarchy, ladies – amirite?! So off we go, watching Isla girlboss her way out of tricky situations involving sponsors, lunkhead players – such as Travis (Chet Hanks), who says things like 'I guess it's take your sister to work day!' when he sees her and makes his Black teammates listen to his raps – and disrespectful star players such as Marcus (Toby Sandeman), who sends his social media manager and triple-wick candles from his wellness range to meetings in his stead. Soon she is also battling Ness and Sandy's growing resentment of her and their objections to her way of handling the team and planning for the season. She wants to invest in their underperforming players, not trade for others and toss them aside! And she'll do a much cleverer deal than the one they drew up the contract for and are telling her to sign, because don't underestimate a woman! Or try to organise a no confidence vote with the board without her finding out and sweeping your legs out from under you! Further conflict ensues when news of an illegitimate fourth son emerges who, it turns out, has been working as a vendor in the Waves stadium for the past three years. The boys want to pay him off but she insists on welcoming him into the family, even if it will mean splitting their inheritance five instead of four ways. Women! They can be annoying, but you know they're always morally right! Running Point is a grind. Everyone is working hard but it's hardly working. A few half-smiles may be raised here and there. Maybe if you understand or care about basketball it's funnier? But any comedy should be able to rise above the need for a bond with the ostensible subject (see football and Ted Lasso). Running Point does not. Running Point is on Netflix now
